Faith Full Tree

Faith-Full Tree

My early morning musings today were really remarkable; they always are when I have an encounter with the Holy Spirit.

There is a tree in my backyard that had me thinking…it is beautiful. The trunk of the tree has vines that twist and turn and it is broad and thick. You can also see the roots growing along the ground. It reminds me of a Banyan tree. But I found out that it is called a Schefflera actinophylla. Common name: Schefflera, Umbrella Tree, Octopus Tree, Amate, Queensland Umbrella Tree. Synonym: Family: Araliaceae

It gives shade to our patio and is very green and healthy. It can grow to over 40 feet tall.

So, this morning I was thinking about it…

I heard the Holy Spirit say in my heart, the word Faith…

Then he said, “Faith is a fruit of the Spirit…You take Faith with you when you go to heaven…in fact you take all of the fruit of the Spirit with you because they make up the character of God.”

Isn’t that wonderful?

Thinking about the tree again, I thought…Jesus, is the Tree of Life. He is also the Living Water…

We are the branches of the tree, when we are His…we drink of the living water our branches grow strong, and our leaves turn dark green and living and vibrant, and we produce fruit…

When we sin, the flow of the living water gets stopped up. If we don’t make amends right away, we become brittle and our leaves begin to fade and drop off, eventually we will wither and die without the life source.

But when we stay connected to the Tree of Life and we allow His water to flow through us…the fruit of His likeness will manifest in us…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…

We will love, we will have joy and peace, we will be patient and kind and good; we will be full of faith, and we will be faithful…gentle, and we have self-control. Not only will we produce this fruit, but we will bestow it on others, even when they do not treat us the same way. It is God’s character, His heart, His Spirit living in us so that we pour it out on others…

The only way to have this fruit, and have it remain, is to stay connected to the Tree of Life…Jesus Christ…

There is also the pruning process…no one wants to be pruned…it hurts and sometimes we are cut back severally…the more that we are pruned, the fuller and brighter and bigger our fruit will become…you may be in the pruning stage right now…don’t be weary…don’t give up…stay connected…be obedient…the fruit that is coming is going to burst out in fullness and there will be such abundance of fruit that your barns will not be able to hold it all…it will overflow…

God bless you today and encourage you, stay in the Tree of Life…blessings are all around us!!

Remember, stay faith full.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Galatians 5:22-23 New Living Translation (NLT)

~Marla Shaw O’Neill May 7, 2018